


cross my heart

by fiveyaaas



Series: open your heart [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (both just implied but tagging just to be sure), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant, Older Man/Younger Woman, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 01, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tragically Pining Idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:09:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29257227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: “cross my heart: used to stress that one is telling the truth and will do what he or she promises”
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Series: open your heart [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138898
Kudos: 19





	cross my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunchime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunchime/gifts).



> Again, I’m sorry for missing a few days, but this will be fully caught up pretty quick!!! Also, if you’re following my Vanya/Allison Femslash February, that will be nearly completely caught up tonight, and I’ll post two fics tomorrow!!!

When he finally glanced up at her, feeling his brows furrowing in concern, she spoke, “You were acting weird at the funeral.”

“I know.”  _ She  _ had caused the end of the world. Vanya. Sweet, shy Vanya. His best friend. “I can explain, V.” 

Not fully, though. It would be a while before he could do that. As much as he’d love to claim he understood how taking away her meds would affect her body, he didn’t trust his limited medical knowledge when it came to  _ this.  _ Even without it potentially causing another apocalypse, it could also lead to her getting sick or doing something drastic. Unfortunately, it meant that he’d have to find a psychiatrist, one who could take her in immediately, but surely it would be fine. Assuming Vanya agreed to see a doctor or stop her meds at all. Getting Allison to rumor her would probably only make things worse. 

“Why do you look older than me?”

He glanced self-consciously down at himself. When he’d landed in 2019 again, he’d thankfully not landed in schoolboy shorts, which would have certainly ripped in the 40-something body. “I’m not  _ that  _ much older,” he defended, trying to adjust his suit. It was still a little small. Apparently he was supposed to be taller than he’d gotten in the apocalypse. As much as he’d love to analyze his new body, though, he didn’t think that  _ now  _ was the time. “But it’s because of time travel. Which leads me to my—”

“You really traveled time?”

Five frowned at her. “Yeah, I mean… With varying amounts of success.” Why was she staring at his body like  _ that?  _ Did he really look that old? “It landed me in—”

“Why didn’t you come home?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have bandaged his injured arm before coming to her, having had to pull the tracker out. When she’d been worried about him, she hadn’t sounded like… an exasperated wife. 

Actually, on second thought, this was alright. He could handle whatever this attitude was. 

“I tried to,” he assured, using the most gentle voice he could possibly muster. When he’d gotten pissed at her last time, he’d left her behind only for her to immediately meet L—

“Vanya, I did everything that I  _ could _ in hopes of getting back to my family, but time travel isn’t an exact science. By the time that I’d jumped forward, a few times, I landed…” He cleared his throat, and her eyes filled with a concern, reaching forward and grabbing at his coat sleeve. Their noses were nearly touching when he continued, “I was thirteen years old, living less than two weeks from now. And it was an impossibility.”

She blinked, pulling closer. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but he didn’t think analyzing it would do anything for him. “You promised you’d always come home, though.” And this time it didn’t hurt him to hear her doubt him, not with how small her voice sounded, how broken up the words were, how she seemed nearly as young as she had the night when she’d begged him to promise that. Five smoothed down her hair, trying to ignore the pained feeling in his chest of when he’d remembered how excited she’d looked to be playing first chair at Icarus. Until it had all gone to Hell. She was nearly in his lap when she repeated, “You  _ promised.” _

“I’d landed at the end of the world, Sev,” he blurted, even though it hadn’t worked out well for him last time. Even though he knew that trying the same thing over and over wouldn’t work out for him. Even though he was pretty sure that the apocalypse would always follow him around because he’d grown up, befriended, and fell in love with it long ago, without even knowing. That if it slipped out of his grasp now, he would have lost everything. “The apocalypse happens in eight days, and I have to stop it.”

“What?” She sounded like she was far away, like his ears were coated in the ash that had seemed to fill his lungs the longer he stayed there. “Why? Five, what… how did it happen? How do we  _ stop _ it?”

And then he was crying because it was just so fucking  _ unfair  _ that he was going to have to live through this all alone, that he was going to have to protect all of the people he cared about from things they didn’t even know to worry about. That he’d always hold the world on his shoulders, and eventually he would collapse from the weight. 

Why had she not just said that the first time around? Why hadn’t he just swallowed his pride and accepted that the world ending wasn’t the kind of information people would easily process? Of course she’d been in disbelief, that wasn’t the kind of thing people expected to hear, and he’d just thought, just  _ hoped,  _ that she’d never stop trusting him and looking up to him as she had when she was young. 

But really, why would she trust him or look up to him, when he’d failed her so greatly?

She really was in his lap then, arms wrapped around him and clutching him tightly, humming a piece she used to play him in his bedroom, scribbling equations onto his walls that would only lead him away from her. If he’d just turned his head and smiled at her, told her that he was proud of all her improvement instead of biting his tongue and reminding himself that there wasn’t any happiness within their future, all those years ago, how much would have changed? 

He’d been right, though that there wouldn’t be any happiness for them. Mainly because he’d thrown it away before it could even start, right beside all of the things he’d promised, hoping for her to never stop being his friend. 

Maybe he could at least salvage this enough, that they could still be friends, at the very least. 

Vanya tipped his chin up, and he wondered how she’d been able to cry so frequently, with how his eyelids felt like they’d sealed themselves shut from the little he’d just done in the indeterminate stretch of time that they’d held onto one another. Her eyes were full of hope as she held up her pinky, whispering, “I promise that we’ll stop it, okay?”

He looped their pinkies, feeling like he was a child but also aware that she was doing this to reassure him in the only way she knew how. Long ago, their promises had been the only thing that had kept that hope in her eyes, and they’d been the only thing that had kept him from leaving even sooner. “Vanya—”

What she did next was not something they’d ever done, but it was something he was sure would have kept him from  _ ever  _ leaving, at least without her. Her lips pressed to his, and it was a promise too. 

That maybe this time would be different.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!! This series will be fully up-to-date in an hour!!!


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